Wells Fargo Wires Scammer $2.1 Million (or, why you should never post signatures on a website)

Last Update: August 9th, 2021

Through a series of fraudulent faxes, it appears that Wells Fargo has been scammed out of $2.1 Million by wiring money to a Hong Kong bank.

From documents released, it appears that money was wired from a Catholic Healthcare West account at Wells Fargo to a “Tektil Trading UK Limited” in Hong Kong.Wells Fargo Bank

The interesting thing about the situation is that the account had a number attempts in over a number of days, some involving the potential sale of securities.

Over these days, as well as later on, there were a number of other attempts to move the money through a wire, however they failed as the receiving account either did not exist, or the the transaction involved selling securities, which would have taken more time and authorization.

Wells Fargo has reimbursed the company’s account, and is currently working with law enforcement to recover the money from the fraudulent faxers.

It appears that the signature to authorize the wire came from the scammers copying it from a document that was publicly posted online by the Healthcare group. Another reminder of the importance of keeping documents especially with signatures off of pages on the internet.

For more on this story:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2012/02/27/wells-fargo-bank-gives-scammer-three-tries/

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/02/28/2248877/wells-fargo-scammed-out-of-21.html

http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23476